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Seizures/Epilepsy & Lupus

Hello everyone,

I've had this nagging question that I wanted to ask. I've seen that seizures are a symptom of Lupus, esp Neuroligical Lupus (I cannot for the life of me remember the name of this type of Lupus) along with of course alot of other things. I personally have not had a seizure since I was 21 (13 yrs ago), but was diagnosed at 7 with childhood epilepsy and had quite a few seizures (petite mall and grand mall) between 6 and 12 (puberty), but subsided with only an occasional petite mall seizure until 21...which was induced after my eyes were dialated at an eye exam under floresent lights.

Now I guess my curious question is if anyone else ever diagnosed or experienced childhood epilepsy/seizures too, with or prior to being diagnosed with Lupus?

My next appointment is tomarrow, and he has some results for me of some of my tests (ok, reallity is nurvously hitting my now), and may ask this question to him too, if it could have been related....but I'm mostly curious if there have been signs of "something" since I was young. I guess it's the perverbial, what came first, chicken or the egg question in my head.

Hi Jelywila;
I do not have any experience with epilepsy and hope that someone responds to your question. However, between 66% and 75% of seizures associated with lupus are generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Although not all studies agree, there is consensus that many generalized seizures occur for the first time during an SLE disease flare and often do not recur until another flare. If residual brain injury occurs during the flare, epilepsy may develop. In many cases, however, these seizures may be part of a temporary process of the flare which lowers the seizure threshold (the point at which a brain will begin to have a seizure). This puts them in the category of "provoked seizures", rather than epilepsy.
Except for rare, coincidental, inherited epilepsy, most seizures in lupus are:
related to conditions which lower the seizure threshold; part of a CNS lupus flare; or symptoms of brain injury not resulting from a CNS lupus effect.

Hi Jelywila

Hi - I began having seizures about a year ago. Having undergone multiple tests, I was diagnosed with CNS-neuropsyciatric lupus (now, that's a mouthful).

My rheumatologist prescribed Gabapentin for my seizures, and I have been seizure free!! Gabapentin is also great for the lupus nerve pain...well, I should say it works well for me.

I began to notice that I was unable to keep on track with projects I was working on, my memory has been affected by this disease. Saysusie is right (always) about all those symptoms. The central nervous system is so complex and is integral in so many areas of functioning.

I wish you the best, and will keep you in my thoughts and prayers. - browneyedgirl53